As Mormon Church Grows, So Does Dissent From Feminists and Scholars

By DIRK JOHNSON,

Published: October 2, 1993

SALT LAKE CITY—
The Mormon Church, whose early leaders feared the wrath of outsiders, has lately viewed its gravest threat as coming from within: intellectuals and feminists in the temples.

In what dissidents have described as a purge, church leaders took severe disciplinary action in September against six Mormon scholars and feminists. The transgressions fit into two categories: academic research that raises questions about official church history, and the call for opening the priesthood to women, which is granted to males over the age of 12.

"With the tremendous growth of the church, we have seen an emerging intellectual pluralism in Mormonism," said Elbert Peck, the publisher of Sunstone, an independent Mormon magazine. "And the church feels it must confront them."

The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints, as the Mormon Church is known, is one of the fastest-growing in the world and now counts 8.5 million members in more than 120 countries. In 1950, when there were one million Mormons, nearly half of them lived in Utah; today, not even one in six live here. And growing numbers of women in the church, like those in other religions with male-only clergies, are chafing at what they regard as sex discrimination. Independent Mormon Voices

In the last decade or so, a flurry of independent Mormon publications and groups have emerged in Salt Lake City, including the Mormon Women's Forum, a feminist group that says it has about 2,000 members.

Its president, Lynn Kanavel Whitesides, was one of the six disciplined by the church authorities. She was "disfellowshipped," which means the loss of certain privileges like receiving sacraments. The other five were excommunicated, a more severe penalty, and their names were removed from church rolls.

Don LeFever, a spokesman for the Mormons, said that the church never discussed its actions but that anything that caused harm to Mormonism would be grounds for discipline.

While women sometimes deliver sermons and lead prayers, they are not allowed to baptize, bless or distribute the sacraments, or lead congregations.

It galls some Mormons that boys as young as 12 can become deacons, an office within the priesthood, and distribute the sacraments. At 16, boys can baptize. In their early 20's, men typically become bishops, the equivalent of priests or ministers in other Christian denominations, an office that is closed to women, as are other positions of authority within the church. Motives Are Discussed

"We are not trying to tear the church down," said Ms. Whitesides, who has called for leadership roles to be opened to women. "Instead, we are trying to give Mormon women a reason to stay in the church."

She said she believed that she had angered the Mormon hierarchy by organizing a protest when two liberal professors at Brigham Young University were denied tenure. The university is owned by the church.

She later appeared on a Salt Lake City television program and warned church leaders that they would be unable to quell the rising tide of feminism in the Mormon ranks.

"If you excommunicate one of us, there will be 10 more to step up and take her place," she said. "Excommunicate those 10 and there will be 100 to take their places."

A long-established doctrine of Mormonism, not widely known outside the church, gives the debate a tantalizing twist: the belief in a female as well as a male deity as the spiritual parents of humankind.

In recent years, Mormon feminists have pointed to a female diety as logical grounds for opening leadership to women. Indeed, some women have begun praying to "our Mother in heaven" as well as "our Father." Leadership Point of View

A church leader, Gordon Hinckley, delivered a speech in 1991 that forbade prayer to a mother in heaven but did not challenge the concept of a female diety. Citing the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus, he said prayers should be offered to "our Father." Another church leader, Boyd Packer, told a Mormon conference in May that feminists posed a serious threat to the faith, along with homosexuals and "so-called intellectuals and scholars."

"Our local leaders," Mr. Packer said, "must deal with all three of them with ever-increasing frequency."

The existence of a female God is underlined in a popular church hymn, written in 1843 by Eliza Snow, an important church figure who called for equal rights for women. The hymn, "Oh, My Father," is still sung in Mormon meeting houses on Sundays. It includes these verses:

In the Heavens are parents single?

No. The thought makes reason stare.

Truth is reason.

Truth eternal

Tells me I've a Mother there.

Throughout the 20th century, leaders of the Mormon Church have sought to move the faith toward the mainstream of Christianity, and at the same time to preserve the distinctiveness of its religious culture. Mormons are expected to tithe, or donate 10 percent of their income to the church, abstain from coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol, and adhere to conservative family values.

But the profile of church members has been changing: statistics on family size, working women and divorce rates show that Mormons are looking more like the rest of America.

Through the 1970's, the size of a typical Mormon family was about 50 percent larger than the national average, said Tim Heaton, a sociologist at Brigham Young University, but that gap has been shrinking in recent years.

The typical married couple in Utah today has 2.5 children, compared with the national average of 1.9. Same Economics for All

"Mormons respond to the same kinds of social and economic conditions that others do," he said. "And the fact is, it's gotten to be very expensive to have a big family."

He said that the percentage of Mormon women who hold paying jobs virtually mirrored the national average and that the divorce rate in Utah was only slightly lower than elsewhere. The Mormon Church encourages women to stay home with children, rather than work. "But that is an ideal," said Mr. LeFever, "and the church understands it's just not economically possible for many families to do so."

Along with the Mormon Tabernacle and the other majestic church buildings, the city has its share of avant-garde places, like Club DV8 and bands with names like Nudeswirl and Maggots Head.

Professor Heaton said, "Salt Lake does not look appreciably different than any other big city in America except, of course, that it's almost all white." Speaking Out for Women

One of the women who was excommunicated, Maxine Hanks, said, "Feminism is embedded in our Mormon history, our culture."

Ms. Hanks, who edited the book "Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism" (Signature Books, 1992), added, "Mormon theology is potentially very empowering for women. But the police and the practice of the institutional church has been very damaging and confining to women."

Michael Quinn, a Yale-educated scholar who formerly taught at Brigham Young, believes that he was expelled from the church for his research. In 1985, Mr. Quinn unearthed evidence that Mormon leaders continued to practice polygamy for 14 years after the church officially ended the practice in 1890, known as the Great Accommodation, to win statehood, which came six years later.

He also wrote an essay for Ms. Hanks's book, "Women Have Had the Priesthood since 1843." It explored the notion that women were spiritually invested with the priesthood by Joseph Smith in a ceremony the church calls "Endowment in the Temple."

The others who were disciplined were Avrhami Gileadi, a conservative Biblical scholar; Paul Toscano, an author and lecturer, and Lavina Fielding Anderson, a writer and scholar. 'Incompatible Categories'

"I am an orthodox, believing Mormon and a feminist," said Ms. Anderson, who was deeply shaken by her excommunication, "and my church has informed me that those are incompatible categories." She said she had been excommunicated for writing critically of certain Mormon bishops and for speaking out about the church's treatment of scholars.

"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me," Ms. Anderson said. "My people have been Mormons for six generations."

The debate over feminism in the Mormon Church comes at a time of growing research by scholars exploring the roles of women in ancient Christian and Jewish culture.

Jan Shipps, a religious scholar and author of "Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition" (University of Illinois Press, 1985), said the idea of a Mormon feminist has long been regarded as an oxymoron.

"But in fact, their history gives them more resources, more inspiration, to draw upon, for feminism," she said.

The Mormon notion of "a Mother in heaven," she said, as it becomes more broadly discussed in American feminist circles, "will be exciting to those who are trying to figure out where they belong in the scheme of Christianity."

Photo: On Sept. 17, when officials of the Mormon Church "disfellowshipped" Lynn Kanavel Whitesides, president of Mormon Women's Forum, supporters held a vigil outside the church in Salt Lake City. (Associated Press)